Hi everyone thankyou to group 6 for making assignment 3 a learning experience for me. I learnt more about integrating ITC in to our classroom but also learnt about working together with some very different people. I realised after our get together that it was just what a sectional meeting would be like in the future and that we all need to adapt to each others strengths and weaknesses. I think i made some friends that i can work with in the future to bounce of information on future tasks and subjects as we seem to be following similar pathways. Well done Kim, Fiona and Mary for making this work LOL Tara I no longer feel like a fish out of water, I think I am now trading water. LOL Tara.

Welcome to group 06 Assignment Wiki!

Morning have added a new page Assignment 3 for editing from MyLO we may need to restructure our lesson sequence, have a great day, talk soon Mxo

Hi all thanks for the chat tonight, have added contact details on the Mylo page please check (to make sure they are correct) look forward to meeting with you in person on Wednesday. Mxo 1/10/09 @ 10:02pm

external image moz-screenshot.jpgexternal image moz-screenshot-1.jpg Hi All, I've added a few things to the integrated curriculum page, is this what we want to do. Once we've sorted this page we can start reflecting on why we chose our resources, using our criteria. Then we should have almost finished. I did't realise how hard this collaborative planning would be online, I personally much prefer talking face to face, but if we can manage this at a distance, face to face planning would seem easy. Fiona

smile-icon.pngHello, have added to the page on MyLO (think we are making good progress - talk online in the chatroom tomorrow night Mxo

Add your picture so we can get to know each other

Fiona
Hi ladies, Have we decided on a specific inquiry question? What exactly do we want our students to know? What is space? How do we find out? Am I travelling down the wrong path of inquiry? (Fiona) Hello Fiona I was thinking the same thing

Solar system and the planets – earth and the nine planets (discover the planets)
space
stars
Wondering if we should narrow down the space topic to possibly focussing on one planet for example Saturn (or whatever) then we could focus our rationale on what we want students to learn about Saturn such as -

  • I wonder what the rings are made of.
  • I wonder how thick Saturn’s rings are.
  • I wonder what will happen to the spacecraft as it passes through the rings.
  • I wonder what causes storms in Saturn’s atmosphere.
Just a thought/suggestions not sure what you all think?? Mxo

Maybe if we use the solar system in general we can guide student learning to focus on the different areas like maths, how far are the planets? How do we explore the solar system- rockets? What we would find if we were to travel to outer space? What does space look like to our cohort? etc - art [Fiona]
Hello Kimberly, Fiona and Tara enjoyed our 'chat' Thurs. Tara have been unable to open your document re the discussion so I'm not quite sure of the word count (for lesson plan) and where in the sequence of lessons my plan falls. Have included a draft copy of my lesson still need to add a web link. Let me know what you think any suggestions and improvements would be greatly appreciated look forward to hearing from you all soon. Mxo
Pretty sure we said about 400 words for each lesson
1600 words L/Plans
150 context
50 question
200 left for reflection/ conclusion or what ever.... please correct me if i got this wrong(kim)
T
hanks Kim, I thought that I had uploaded the cover page to the wiki, found it in history...
this email from Sharon makes me think we may need to rethink our question of inquiry also Mx

ubject: Are you on the right track?
Topic: Assessment task 3
Author: Dr Sharon Pittaway
Date: 27 September 2009 3:07 PM
This is part of an email that came through last week.

The sequence of four lessons, my group yesterday took it as four subject areas that build on each other. We are doing space - one in literacy preparing for a trip to another planet listing what to take and why, maths calculating the distances, time taken, light years etc. Technology designing a rocket and making one, then science letting off a bottle rocket and the whys etc.

OR is it four lessons in one subject area that build on each other for example something like the rocket but do four lessons one on research, then designing, making and finally letting off???

My first comment is: where is the inquiry? What is the inquiry question here? That will help determine how the sequence of lesson plays out. There's no point writing in your assignment 'we are doing space'. That doesn't mean anything - what about space? You need a question. How have we found out about space through the ages? What is space made of? Why are some planets bigger or smaller than others? What is the size of the earth in relation to the sun/Mars/Jupiter and what might this mean for life on other planets? What is space junk and will it fall on us?

This example says to me that the group have started planning the lessons before they've thought of their inquiry question. The question should be the starting point and will determine the shape of the learning sequence.
(I think this is important Mx)

This is a really important point to get across - and I cannot stress how important it is. This will apply to all planning you do - whether that's lesson, daily, unit, term, year planning.

What is it that you want students to do, know, understand, value? That needs to be the starting point for any planning - not 'what can we do to address the English curriculum' and 'what can we do to address the Maths curriculum'? (what are we wanting our students to know we need a question of inquiry Mx)

If you want students to know why racism exists then you'll plan learning around that question (why does racism exist?); if you want students to know how to behave in a public place (what is appropriate behaviour in public?) then you'll design learning around that question. You'll integrate a range of curriculum areas into your planning - you have to to ensure that students learn.

It is one of the problems with having discipline-specific lessons. It's ludicrous to suggest that you only do science in Science because in order to do science you have to read (and there's literacy right there) and you have to calculate measurements (there's maths), and you have to look through microscopes and use other equipment (there's technology) ... and you can study where our ideas about science have come from (history) and where in the world we find particular species of plants and animals and the features of those places (there's geography) ...

In this task you are asking a question that will guide the learning. If you don't start with a question then you have started in the wrong place and you will not be on the right track. Sharon.
(what do we want our students to know? for example: I wrote my lesson plan on the planets of the solar system not sure what the inquiry question is? My example question could be something like 'Earth is a planet. There are other planets in the solar system as a class we are going to investigate the planets of the solar system'. Not sure if this is what Sharon means what do others think? Mx) Hi Mary not sure if I am on the right track I was assuming our question would be "how does an Astronaut get to work" this provided us with opportunity to inquire about space and planets, rockets and linking these with the math lesson comparing distances they need to travel compared to their parents etc this also provided a link of curriculum by using the world around them to explore. Hope this is clearer and what you are looking for. (Tara)

Hi Mary yes i think what Sharon is saying is exactly what we are doing the only thing was they havent clearly written our question our inquiry was based on How does an astronaut get to work. This was to look at space travel, how far is space, what does an Astronaut use to get there etc. I think so far we have chosen different learnings to explore this topic and offer inquiry to our students as well as making sure we are incorporating ICT throughout these areas. Hope that helps ans sorry tried everything to save the chat but couldnt open it will try again next week. (Tara) thanks Tara, a little worried that we need to chose a inquiry question though Mxo

Tara
tara_uni_id.JPG
hello
well i did it HELP got excited created page but now i dont think i can copy and paste ahh any ideas!!!!!!!!!!! Tara 25th sep.


Kimberly Photo_8.jpg

As Mary suggested i have set up a wiki even if we decide not to use it its a good place to get the ball rolling. Lets get some ideas down.(kim)

Context- student cohort
After reading our initail posts it seems like 3 of us are familiar with the early years and a couple of people have mentioned science. I think we should go with our strengths for the assignment even though i said i was keen to try something new, maybe an assessment is not the best time.... what do you think?(kim)

Well I have worked in many areas and age groups but have been focussing on 6/7's but that is ok. After reading the task i think we need to think about our question and then we can maybe do a lesson each to help the students answer this question so 1 could do a science lesson 1 a math lesson etc not sure if I am on the right track but that is how i read it as long as all the lesson plans include the implementation of IT to them and obviously form some links to each other. Let me know what you think Tara. Also wiki great idea we have all had to use it. Chat line fill me in and i am keen havent used it yet so a little direction please hear from you guys soon Tara.


Well i am not sure what happened but i just all of the info i just wrote. So here we go again - I think space would be a good topic as it is the year of astronomy and there would be lots of information available to us. We could incorporate the subjects or lessons above to provide an opportunity for the students to researxh and gain knowledge of this subject. Any suggestions for a question???? This is just a suggestion any others feel free!!
Thanks Tara


Question-


Resource ideas- i made a new page and copied these over hope you don't mind


http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/home/
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov

http://www.nineplanets.org

These were some of the websites I used for my critical evaluation piece they mught be of help. (Tara) These maybe the ones that you mentioned Fiona.

I found this web site, I think it's fantastic it has links to so many topics. It even has a section on integrated curriculum.Sue's web links


Lesson sequence-



Ideas for how we are going to get this all together
is there a time we can all meet in the chat room?(kim)
I think Thurs ok after 8.30 or Sun maybe better any time if organised obviously not Sat Footy Grand Final and BBQ for me.. (Not worried about result no Crows) Tara


Thursday after 8.30pm is fine with me. I like the idea of space, the grade 1's used a website that looks interesting, it was from NASA and aimed at kids, I'll check with the teacher and find out the url. It looked like fun, will research more about it and share the details. (Fiona)
This maybe a really stupid question but can we copy and paste from this wiki to a word document when we are happy with our assignment? I'm assuming that is how we have to submit through mylo. Fiona
Y
es we can. Thats what i did to get the info we already had on the wiki on to the doc i posted on the discussion board.